Re: Respect?


Joe wrote:
> On 11 Jan 2006 01:19:06 -0800, "Rob" <robwilard@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >The Times January 11, 2006
> >
> >We're all searching for respect - but no one's looking in the right
> >place
> >Alice Miles
> >http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1058-1979586,00.html
> >
You have to 'earn' respect. It's not automatically given. AND, even
when you get respect, it will only come from some social groups and not
from others. To really earn respect you have to give up the notion
that all social groups will find you worthy.



> ><Quote>
> >The Respect Action Plan fairly bristles with sources of aid or advice:
> >Children's Centres, Sure Start, Children's Trusts, Children and
> >Young People's Plans, the Youth Justice Board, Crime and Disorder
> >Reduction Partnerships, Education Maintenance Allowances, Care to Learn
> >scheme - and that's only with the 40-page brochure open on one
> >page.
> >
> >Health, education, police and social services all spend much of their
> >time dealing, separately, with the same offenders or families. We have
> >ASBOs (antisocial behaviour orders) and ABCs (acceptable behaviour
> >contracts) and PGAs (parental guidance agreements); orders or
> >agreements between parents or children and the State to behave or
> >refrain from behaving in particular ways. The "action plan" aims to
> >target interventions more effectively and at a younger age. There will
> >be more orders, more advice, more sanctions. More money. And More
> >Acronyms.
> >
> >.....With the new Tories sounding more and more like new Labour, who is
> >going to talk about the missing element?
> >
> >Fathers. Where are the fathers? Look at acceptable behaviour contracts.
> >Some 13,000 of these have been signed, twice the number of ASBOs. Drawn
> >up individually between youth workers and individuals, they warn a
> >child, under threat of an ASBO, to avoid a range of actions from
> >writing graffiti to hanging around in stairways, throwing things or
> >swearing. They are doing the job traditionally done by a father:
> >don't do that again, or else. "There aren't any fathers" is
> >what you hear when you talk to members of teenage gangs and those who
> >get involved in crime at a young age.
> >
> >The cultural shift that would be of greatest effect in restoring a
> >culture of respect is somehow to encourage fathers to take
> >responsibility for their children again.

[Why do fathers NEED encouragement? Isn't being a father
enough....like being a mother provides enough encouaragement? What
you may be talking about is providing special rights or perks just so
men will be there for their own children. We don't reward people for
NOT doing what is their duty to do.]

>
> How is that done? When Mothers re-marry many times and have the
> ABSOLUTE _word/authority_ concerning disipline (negating any/all
> influence from a father/step-father). The result, is just increased
> anti-social behaviour from teens. Fathers are dispensible.

[Whether or not mothers remarry, if they are doing the primary care and
have custody of children, their obligation is FOR the day to day care
of children, while NCPs obligaton is to provide an enviornment for
visitation. If they share custody (hard on kids having to go from
place to place in search of home) it is up to both parents to provide
for the day to day care, and there, fathers can have more impact.]
>
> >Somehow the women's rights movement, and the extension in the legal
> >powers of mothers over their children that followed it, have hurried or
> >forced fathers out of the picture and then accepted the relegation of
> >their responsibilities.

[A child born without one parent is not in the same position as the
child deprived of a parent. Parents who abandon their children after a
divorce, are at fault. We don't blame the custodial parent for actions
of an abandoning parent. Saying that a mother should have to be
mother AND FATHER to a child who has been abandoned by the father, is
blaming the parent who STAYS. No one is buying that snakeoil today.]

Make it a legal responsibility if necessary,>with severe penalties for
walking away from a child, and use that>signal to create a social
stigma (one that must apply too to any parent
> >preventing access to a child).

[Men would not like penalties for walking away, and the courts don't
tend to enforce personal service contracts, so I can't see the courts
taking the father by the neck and forcing him to relate to his
children. It's just not possible to force people to relate. Plus,
there are many good reasons CPs have for not providing access,
INCLUDING the number of children who plain don't want to visit the
other parent. Children have lives of their own, and if they want time
with their neighborhood friends over spending time with the NCP, the
NCP becomes an unwanted parent TO the kids. IOW, it most frequently
is the child him or herself who does not want the visit. Stop blaming
women for everything.]

For at the moment it is easier to abandon a baby than it is a dog.

The new Animal Welfare Bill imposes a duty on the person responsible
for an animal to ensure that its needs>are met. Dump a cat or a
goldfish and you face imprisonment; but when a >father abandons a child
we shrug and mutter "***".

[You can force people to pay for the harm caused by not being present
in the lives of their children, but you can never force a parent to
love and care for the children. That's why the courts don't enforce
personal service contracts, they cannot make Stradavarious play his
violin, but rather they can only enforce damages.]

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